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VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY 



LECTURE BY 



SWAMI ABHEDANANDA 




PHILOSOPHY OF GOOD AND EYIL 



Tuxedo Hall, New York, November 19, 1899 



Published by the Vedanta Society 

NEW YORK 



PRICE 10 CENTS >»% , 

Copyright, 1900, by Swami Abhed\anda, new york 



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" Good and evil of this world of duality are unreal, are spoken of by words, 
and exist only in the mind." — Bh&gavatam, Book XI, ch. XXVII. 

'* He who is devoted to higher knowledge rises above both good and evil."— 
Bhagavad Gita, ch. II, v. 50. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOOD AND EVIL. 

Whosoever has made a careful study of the phe- 
nomena of the universe, has noticed that nature is 
bisected, as it were, by the inevitable dualism of her 
opposing forces. The world of phenomena bears 
testimony to the constant fight of these two sets of 
contrasting forces, which have a multitude of desig- 
nations, such as : good and evil, virtue and vice, 
knowledge and ignorance, light and darkness, heat 
and cold, attraction and repulsion, love and hatred, 
pleasure and pain, health and disease, life and death. 
On the one side, we see about us the signs of good- 
ness, virtue, knowledge, love, self-sacrifice, health 
and all that makes life sweet and worth living ; on the 
other side we find the expressions of evil, vice, igno- 
rance, hatred, selfishness, murder, pestilence, disease, 
plague, earthquake, and all that makes life bitter, un- 
happy and miserable. Nature stands before us, as it 
were, with a benign and loving expression, ever 
ready to pour on our heads the blessings and com- 
forts which she holds in one hand, while at the same 
time she affrights us by showing the sharp, shining 



2 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

edge of the drawn sword of destruction and evil 
which she holds in her other hand. This dual aspect 
in nature cannot be denied, and we are all bound to 
experience one or the other of these two sides at 
every moment of our earthly existence. Whenever 
we experience the good side of nature, we rejoice and 
feel ourselves extremely happy; but our heart trem- 
bles, our breath stops, when we are face to face with 
the other aspect. Nature has ever been express- 
ing herself in these two ways. What we see today 
was seen thousands of years ago and will be seen 
thousands of years hence. Centuries have gone by, 
nation after nation has passed away, but has nature 
ever ceased to follow her course? No. Her laws are 
perennial; her course is eternal. If we read the his- 
tories of ancient nations, we see that these two aspects 
of nature were as clearly manifested in the past as they 
are now. Constant attempts have been made to trace 
the causes of these contrasting forces and contradic- 
tory events of the phenomenal world. The best 
thinkers and philosophers of every age and clime have 
devoted their energies most earnestly and enthusias- 
tically to the solution of the mystery of the good and 
evil aspects of nature, and to tracing how this dualism 
began and what was its cause. All the religious sys- 
tems and philosophies of the world are but so many 
attempts of the human mind to reach the proper solu- 
tion of this problem of good and evil, and to discover 
why such a thing as evil exists, why there is so much 
misery, suffering, crime and vice about us, and how 
these can be annihilated. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOOD AND EVIL. 3 

All such attempts and explanations can be classified 
under three names; first, optimistic; secondly, pessi- 
mistic; and thirdly, monistic. We find the most an- 
cient of the optimistic explanations of the dual aspect 
of nature in the Zendavesta, the scriptures of the an- 
cient Persians, or Iranians. These ancient Persian 
optimists looked at the good and evil forces x)f nature 
as two entities eternally separate from each other, and 
believed that they were created by two distinct beings, 
or spirits. The one was called Ahura Mazda, the 
creator of all good that exists in the universe. The 
other was called Ahriman, the creator of all evil. The 
one half of the universe was created by the good God 
Ahura Mazda, who is omniscient, all-powerful, and 
governor of all good thoughts and ideas, and of 
everything that is good in the universe; while the 
other half, and all that is evil, was created by Ahri- 
man, the evil spirit. 

At first these two spirits were friendly and lived 
together, but afterwards Ahriman separated from 
Ahura Mazda, rebelled against him, and acted as his 
constant adversary. When the good God, Ahura 
Mazda, created the world and made it good in every 
way, the malicious Ahriman, who is described as a 
wily serpent, showed his power and tricks by sowing 
the seeds of sin and evil in the beautiful creation of 
Ahura Mazda. Although he was punished by Ahura 
Mazda, he did not stop fighting with his most power- 
ful enemy. This fight will continue until the day of 
judgment and the renovation of the world, when the 
victory of good over evil will be complete; then 



4 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

Ahura Mazda will create another and better world, 
free from sin and evil. Ahura Mazda has several 
good spirits, or angels under his command ; Ahriman 
also has many evil spirits as his attendants. Both 
are working through their attendants. Such is the 
explanation of the cause of good and evil in the 
Persian scriptures, the Zendavesta. 

This Persian idea of the two separate creators of 
good and evil was adopted by the ancient Jews dur- 
ing the Babylonian captivity, which lasted from 536 
to 333 B.C. The Persian paradise, Aryana Vaejo, be- 
came the Garden of Eden in the Old Testament; 
Elohim Yahveh, the tribal god of the house of Israel, 
became the creator of good and of the universe; 
while Satan, the old time servant of Yahveh, was en- 
dowed with the wicked and malicious spirit of Ahri- 
man, and afterwards became the devil in the New 
Testament. It was at this time that the ancient He- 
brews received from the Persians the ideas of heaven 
and hell, of angels and bright spirits. They accepted 
the Persian belief in punishment after death and in 
the resurrection of the spiritual body, as well as in the 
supernatural Saviour of the world. Thus we can trace 
the origin of the mythological explanation regarding 
the cause of good and evil as described in the Scrip- 
tures of the Hebrews, Christians, and Mahommedans. 
The same ideas of reward and punishment, of good 
and evil, prevail -amongst the Mahommedans, who be- 
. I'eve in the Old Testament as much as do the Chris- 
tians and Hebrews. The idea that good and evil are 
the results of two distinct and eternally separate 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOOD AND EVIL. 5 

causes pervades many of the sayings of Jesus the 
Christ, as, for instance, " A good tree cannot bring 
forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth 
good fruit." (Math. vii. 18.) By this simile Jesus 
the Christ not only separated the cause of good from 
that of evil, but he indicated that evil can never pro- 
duce good, nor good, evil. He also described the 
punishment of evil when he said, " Every tree that 
bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast 
into the fire." (Math. vii. 19.) 

According to the synoptic gospels, as they have 
been handed down to us, Jesus believed that the pun- 
ishment of evil is the casting of the evil-doer into fire. 
This idea gradually developed into the hell-fire doc- 
trine of Christian theology. Jesus also believed in 
devils, when he cast them out, as well" as in Satan, 
the creator of all evils, and Beelzebub, the prince of 
devils, and in their attendants. (See Math. xii. 26, 27.) 
Moreover, he believed that he cast out devils by the 
spirit of God, thus proclaiming that God, who is all* 
good, can never produce any evil. 

According to the New Testament, all diseases, sor- 
rows, suffering, misery, crime, sin and all that is evil, 
are the works of Satan, or the evil spirit. Satan, in 
the New Testament, is a personage of great im- 
portance, as he is the cause of the numberless and 
immeasurable evils which exist in the world. He is 
the prince, or ruler of this world. (John xii. 31.) In 
short, he is the pillar of the systems of Mazdaism, 
Judaism, Christianity and Mahommedanism. If that 
prominent pillar were taken away the whole world of 



6 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

evil would remain causeless and unaccounted for. Al- 
though, ever since the beginning of the Christian era, 
the Biblical explanation of the cause of good and 
evil has been accepted and preached by the priests 
and theologians of Christendom, yet the majority of 
minds have never stopped to ask the question, why 
does the good God, who is the Creator of the world, 
at once omnipotent, omniscient and all-merciful, per- 
mit Satan to tempt mankind, to bring evil into the 
world, and to spoil the goodness and purity of His 
beautiful creation? That question, however, is of 
vital importance. The solution of this problem has 
been sought for again and again, and the Christian 
theologians, up to this day, have failed to give any 
satisfactory answer. All their attempts have ended 
in making the good God either limited in power, par- 
tial, unjust, or cruel. Some of the Hebrew prophets, 
however, believed that God was the creator of evil as 
well as of good. " I am the Lord, and there is none 
else. I form the light, and create darkness : I make 
peace, and create evil : I the Lord do all these things." 
(Isaiah xlv. 6, 7.) Again Nehemiah said, " Did not 
our God bring all this evil upon us?" (Nehemiah 
xiii. 18.) 

This idea was afterwards accepted by the Calvinists 
of the seventeenth century. They believed that God 
was responsible for the good and evil of the world, 
otherwise He would be limited in power. By attempt- 
ing to solve the problem in this way they left God 
partial and unjust. St. Augustine tried to solve the 
question of good and evil by formulating the dogma 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOOD AND EVIL. *J 

of predestination and grace. This was no better than 
the solution offered later by Calvin. Instead of trac- 
ing the cause of good and evil, it made the great God 
unjust and merciless in relation to suffering humanity. 
Why should one man be predestined to suffer and 
another to enjoy? The doctrine of predestination 
does not give us any reason. Such explanations have 
made many a thinker an unbeliever in God and pessi- 
mistic in his views. Many a soul, saddened by the 
spectacle of wickedness and suffering in the world has 
cried aloud in despair, " There is no God who can be 
called merciful, just and loving." 

From the time of the Gnostics of the Middle Ages, 
who believed that this world was originally created, 
not by the good God, but by a devil, and that it is to 
be slowly and gradually purified by the power of the 
merciful God through Jesus the Christ, down to the 
present day, there have been many free-thinkers who 
have held that the creator of the world is not an all- 
merciful and just God, but a being with a diabolical na- 
ture. August Comte, the most prominent of the mod- 
ern free-thinkers, after seeing the imperfection of this 
world, regretted, like Alfonso the King of Castile, 
that he had not been present at the time of the crea- 
tion, as he could have given such excellent advice to 
the creator! 

Another class of optimists say it is true that this 
world is full of sorrow, suffering and misery, but it is 
the best world that God could create. Let us shut 
our eyes to evil, which can never be avoided as long 
as the present conditions exist, and make the best use 



8 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

of our time, because matter, by its inherent nature, 
possesses a diabolical character of its own. A similar 
opinion was held by Plato, Leibnitz, Dr. Martineau, 
and other optimists of this class. There are other 
optimistic thinkers who deny the existence of evil in 
the creation of a just, merciful and good God. They 
say it is all good, there cannot be any evil. They try 
to see good everywhere and in every act, and declare 
that all sufferings, misery and hardships are for our 
good. If any blow comes to us, it is for our good. 
Everything is for our good, and must be so, because 
the nature of creation is inherently good. They deny 
the creation of evil, and explain that good is a posi- 
tive reality, and that what we call evil is only a nega- 
tion of good. Good predominates in the world al- 
though we may not see it at present in all cases. 
Thus, instead of tracing the cause of evil, they deny 
it and shut their eyes to it. This kind of optimism is 
one extreme; pessimistic thinkers, on the contrary, 
go to another extreme. They make evil a positive 
reality, and good a negation of evil. They make de- 
struction, death and misery the goal of the universe 
and deny the existence of good. They say that suf- 
fering and misery are the conditions of our existence, 
that pleasure and happiness come accidentally. The 
struggle for our existence involves some kind of suf- 
fering which we cannot avoid. If all our wishes be 
fulfilled the moment they arise in our minds, then how 
shall we spend our time? How shall we occupy our 
lives? There would be no struggle for existence, con- 
sequently no activity, no life. As the human frame 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOOD AND EVIL. 9 

will be rent into pieces if the weight of the atmos- 
pheric pressure which we are unconsciously carrying 
all the time be removed, so according to the pessimis- 
tic theory, the lives of men will fail of their purpose 
and end if they are relieved from the burden of need, 
hardship, adversity and evil. There is no way of 
avoiding this except by death. Life is not worth liv- 
ing according to these pessimists. They do not see 
any good in life. They must find evil everywhere. 
The best way of escaping evil is by committing sui- 
cide. They do not believe in the idea that a creator 
who is merciful, just and all-good, created this world 
of misery, suffering, sorrow and evil. They do not 
say who created it. Thus the pessimistic explanation 
leads to another extreme, and does not satisfy any ra- 
tionalistic mind. 

A better explanation of the cause of good and evil 
is needed. But if the optimists are justified in seeing 
good in everything, and in saying that God created 
this world for our pleasure and happiness, the pessi- 
mists are equally justified in seeing evil in everything 
and in saying that God created this world for the suf- 
fering and misery of millions. The true explanation 
lies neither in optimism nor in pessimism. They are 
the two extremes. As long as the idea of the special 
creation of the world by an extra-cosmic personal 
r God is preached, so long the true philosophy of good 
and evil will not be properly understood. In the 
West, people are beginning to wake up from the sleep 
of superstition and prejudice, and to see, through sci- 
ence and logic, that there can not be two separate ere- 



IO VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

ators of good and evil who are constantly fighting 
against each other, nor two forces of nature; but 
that all the phenomena of nature are but the expres- 
sions of one eternal Energy. The whole universe is 
the result of the evolution of that one Energy. Na- 
ture is one, and not two. 

The theory of the creators of good and evil is sup- 
planted by the doctrine of evolution. Ahura Mazda 
and Ahriman, with their many names, such as Je- 
hovah, Satan, Devil and others, having played their 
parts for centuries on the stage of the universe, are 
now slowly withdrawing themselves into oblivion. 
The idea of a special creation at a definite time, has 
been followed by that of a gradual process of evolu- 
tion extending through millions of years, in which 
extra-cosmic creators have neither part nor share. 
To a scientific mind the Garden of Eden has no at- 
traction of any kind, it has become like a fool's para- 
dise. The fall of man is no longer a reality, but a 
mythological story. Thoughtful men and women of 
Western Countries who believe in the doctrine of evo- 
lution are just beginning to unlearn the scriptural 
dogmas. The time has come when people are apply- 
ing logic and reason in solving the problem of good 
and evil. The tendency of scientific researches and 
investigations is to discover the unity of nature, which 
underlies the apparent duality of the opposing forces, 
and to explain the variety of phenomena through that 
underlying unity. In India, this unity of nature was 
understood by the monistic thinkers and Vedanta 
philosophers many centuries before the birth of 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOOD AND EVIL. II 

Christ. These monistic thinkers understood from the 
beginning that this world was not created at a special 
time by a special being, and aided by logic and reason 
they came to believe in the doctrine of evolution. 

In the voluminous writings of the Hindu sages 
there is no word which means a creation out of noth- 
ing. The word they use literally means " projection/' 
answering to the modern idea of evolution. Unlike 
the Western people of today, they had nothing to 
unlearn, as they had slowly and gradually discovered 
the true cause of good and evil, and afterwards ex- 
plained their mutual relation as clearly as possible. 
They said that good and evil are relative terms, one 
of which cannot exist without the other. What we 
call " good " depends upon the existence of what we 
call " evil/' and evil exists only in relation to good. 
Being interdependent terms they cannot be separated. 
In trying to separate them and to make each stand by 
itself as independent of the other, we not only de- 
stroy their relative and interdependent nature, but 
we destroy the terms themselves. The moment you 
try to separate good from evil you find this to be true. 
Evil cannot exist alone. If you try to make evil stand 
by itself as entirely separate from good, you can no 
longer recognize it as evil. Consequently, according 
to the Vedanta philosophers, the difference between 
good and evil is not one of kind, but of degree, like 
the difference between light and darkness. Again, 
the same thing can appear as good and as evil under 
different circumstances. That which appears as good 
in one case, may appear as evil if the conditions 



12 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

change and the results be different. The same fire 
may be called a giver of life and comfort, a bestower 
of happiness and a producer of good when it saves the 
life of a half-frozen man or when it gives us warmth 
in the coldest days of winter, or when it cooks our 
food, or guides our feet ; but it will be called the pro- 
ducer of evil and a curse of God when it destroys 
life, or inflicts injury on man, or on his property. Still, 
the nature of fire is to burn, and this nature does not 
change. The great London fire destroyed many lives, 
brought ruin and destruction to many families, but 
at the same time it destroyed the germs of a plague 
which would have done more evil. So it was both 
good and evil at the same time. The same force of 
gravitation is called good when it attracts the mole- 
cules of our bodies and keeps together the atoms of 
our clothes, gives shape to our houses, our bodies, 
and this earth where we are now living, but it is the 
producer of evil when it kills a man who falls from 
the roof of a house. Electricity is good when it gives 
light, moves a street car, cures a pain, or relieves a 
disease, but it is evil when it crushes a man under the 
shock of its tremendous currents. As electricity, it 
is neither good nor evil, neither positive nor negative, 
and the other forces of nature are neither good nor 
evil, but their expressions may be called good or evil 
according to the results they produce. The forces of 
nature are running in the universe with tremendous 
activity and mad rush, like the currents of a mighty 
river which brings what we call good and blessings 
on one shore, and evil and destruction on the other. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOOD AND EVIL. 1 3 

As, standing on one shore where good prevails, we 
say the river is very good, it is the producer of good, 
etc., so, standing on the other shore, we call the same 
river a producer of evil, a creator of destruction. 
Similarly, we say the forces of nature are good or evil 
according to our standard, our ideas and our inter- 
ests. On the one hand, the river fertilizes the country 
by depositing rich soil and helping the growth of 
vegetation ; on the other hand, the same river destroys 
villages and all that stands in its way. 

Good and evil exist in our minds. That which 
fulfils our interests is called good, and that which 
brings to us misery or anything which we do not 
want, is called evil. When we look at the phenomena 
of nature by piecemeal, without recognizing their con- 
nection, we do not get the proper explanation of 
events. But if we look at the same phenomena as re- 
lated to one another and to the whole universe, then 
we discover the true explanation, and we are no 
longer puzzled. Then the proper cause of good and 
evil is understood. It is limitation, the inability to 
recognize the relation of the part to the whole. Ac- 
cording to the monistic philosophers of India, it is 
impossible to find anything absolutely good, or ab- 
solutely evil in this world of relativity. That which 
we call good is only one phase and the other is evil. 
When we ignore the one phase, we see the other phase 
as alone. The same event may produce evil in one 
country and good in another. The famine in India 
killed millions by starvation, but it made the Ameri- 
can farmers richer than ever before. The famine has 



14 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

done evil in India, but good in America. This is true 
in every case. Our life, which is a great blessing to 
us, depends upon the life of others. The maintenance 
of our life causes thousands to die. Millions of lower 
animals are killed every day for our food. Each 
stomach has become a cemetery and each tooth a 
tombstone. When one man murders another, his mo- 
tive is to do good to himself or to his family, or to 
society, or to fulfil some purpose which he considers 
good. The murderer may believe that he does some 
good to somebody, but, as he takes a wrong course 
of action, he is called a murderer and gets no sym- 
pathy from anybody, and is punished by society and 
the State. When a big murderer, however, comes 
from the battle-field after committing hundreds of 
murders to possess another's territory, we praise him 
and honor him and call him the greatest hero, and 
reward him. But if we analyse the nature of the 
work he has done, we find that he has committed 
many murders to serve his country. As the murderer 
of multitudes is supposed to do good to his country, 
so possibly the man w T ho kills but one person may 
do some good somewhere, although we may not rec- 
ognize it as such. Our intellect is short-sighted, 
therefore we cannot always see the true results of our 
actions. As we cannot draw a sharp line of demarca- 
tion between the good and evil results of the physical 
forces of nature and cannot say that this is good and 
good alone, so we cannot separate the good and evil 
results of our moral acts. That which is morally 
good in one case may be evil in another. As, for 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOOD AND EVIL. 15 

instance, the commandment of God is supposed to 
be a moral good, and beneficial to all. Think of the 
command which God gave to Saul; "Now go and 
smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have 
and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, 
infant and suckling, ox, sheep, camel and ass." (1 
Samuel xv. 3.) We call it a good act because God 
did it, but if one man commands another to do such 
a horrible deed what will you "call him? Such is our 
judgment. We say many things without knowing 
why we say them. Let us open our eyes and see how 
far good goes and how it is mixed with evil. Every 
act which we do must be backed by a motive, that 
motive again is for the good of some or for the 
evil of some. We may, or may not, understand it, 
but the results of our acts are always mixed with 
good and evil. Take, for instance, the nearest ex- 
ample. I am talking to you. Perhaps I am doing 
some good. At least, I intend to do so. But at the 
same time I am causing the death of millions of mi- 
crobes. It may be good to me, or to you, but the 
poor animalculae would not call it good. When we 
see the results of this act from our standpoint we 
call it good, but if we were to look at it from the mi- 
crobes' standpoint it would appear quite different, 
they would doubtless call it evil. If we judge every- 
thing from our standpoint, we can never know 
whether it is really good or evil, because our stand- 
ard is limited and imperfect. Those who do not rec- 
ognize the results of acts from different standpoints 
are liable to all kinds of error. If I judge the whole 



l6 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

universe by my standard, my judgment will be very 
poor. But when I look at things from the various 
standpoints, I can understand how the same event 
can produce good and evil in relation to different con- 
ditions. Every mistake we make becomes a great 
teacher in the long run. Thus evil has its good, and 
good has its evil side. Therefore good and evil go 
hand in hand. But ordinarily, wherever we find a 
preponderance of good over evil we designate it good, 
and the opposite as evil. Again, that which is sinful 
to one may be virtuous to another. Consider the dif- 
ferent standards of sin among the Mahommedans, the 
Mormons and the Christians. Compare the scrip- 
tures of the world and see how what is a virtue in the 
Old Testament is a. vice to men who believe in other 
scriptures. If polygamy is a sin according to the 
Christians, it is a virtue with the Mahommedans and 
Mormons, and was such with the ancient Jews. That 
which is good for some persons, as inculcated by their 
religion, may be evil to others living under a different 
dispensation. 

Thus, we cannot draw a sharp line between good 
and evil. Punishment and reward, according to the 
Vedanta philosophy, are but the reactions of our 
own actions. It says that every action must have 
a similar reaction. If the action be good, the reaction 
must be the same. Vedanta philosophy says " Every 
action, whether backed by good or bad motives is 
covered with its opposite, as fire is enveloped with 
smoke. ,, If we examine our own lives we will notice 
that good often comes out of evil. If the greater 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOOD AND EVIL. 1 7 

number of personal misfortunes have their good side, 
hardly any good fortune ever befell any one which did 
not give, either to the same or to some other person, 
something to regret. 

The Vedanta philosophers try to explain the so- 
called punishment and reward by referring to the law 
of cause and sequence, the law of action and reaction. 
Action and reaction are opposite and equal, says 
physical law. When we do certain acts we are sure 
to reap certain results. But, if the results come before 
we have forgotten the causes which brought them, we 
call them either rewards, or punishments. If a good 
act is done today, the result may come at once, or 
after many years. God never punishes the wicked, 
nor rewards the virtuous. He shines like the im- 
partial sun equally upon the heads of sages and sin- 
ners. It is our own acts that bring the results, either 
in the form of reward or punishment. When we un- 
derstand clearly the law of cause and sequence, and 
of action and reaction, then we cease to blame God 
or any other extra-cosmic creator of evil. Then we 
do not say that evil has been interpolated from with- 
out. If we know that all the forces of nature, both 
physical and mental, are but so many expressions of 
one eternal Energy or Divine Will, which is far be- 
yond the relative good and evil, then we do not see 
good and evil in the universe, but on the contrary, 
we find everywhere the expression of that Divine 
Will. The nature of an effect must be the same as 
that of the cause, because effect is nothing but the 
manifested state of the cause, and if the cause of the 



1 8 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

universe be one eternal, divine Energy, then the uni- 
verse, as a whole, can be neither good nor evil. 

When we can throw aside the narrow, limited glass 
of our relative standard, through which we are now 
looking at the events of life and put on our mental 
eye the glass of divine energy or universal will, then 
we shall no longer see good and evil, virtue and vice, 
or reward and punishment. But we shall see the ex- 
pression of one law of causation everywhere. Then 
we shall not blame our parents, or Satan, or God or 
anybody, but shall understand that all our misery is 
but the result of our own acts which we did in this 
life or in a past incarnation. If we understand that 
as electricity is neither positive nor negative, but 
appears as positive or negative when manifested 
through a magnet, we can apprehend that the laws 
of nature only appear to us as good or evil when they 
express themselves through the gigantic magnet of 
the phenomenal universe. If we realize that the eter- 
nal Energy, or the Divine Will, appears as good or 
evil only as related to our minds and lives, then we 
can say, as the great Sages in India said, " God does 
not create good or evil, nor does He take the virtue 
or sin of anybody. He does not punish the wicked 
nor reward the virtuous. Our intelligence being cov- 
ered, as it were, with the cloud of ignorance and rela- 
tivity, deluded as we are, we imagine, on account of 
our imperfect understanding, that God creates good 
or evil, that His creation is good or evil, that He 
punishes or rewards." It is through our ignorance 
of Truth that we do not recognize the divinity which 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOOD AND EVIL. 1 9 

pervades the universe, standing high above the reach 
of our conception of good and evil. 

Let us strive to see that divinity, by going behind 
the phenomenal appearances of good and evil. Let 
us go to the Eternal Source of all phenomena. Let 
us first reach the highest plane of spiritual oneness, 
and standing on that plane of Divine Will, let us un- 
derstand that good and evil are two aspects of One 
which is neither good nor evil, but Absolute. Then, 
and then alone, we shall transcend good and evil and 
enjoy eternal bliss in this life. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS AFTER THE LECTURE. 

Is Vedanta optimistic or pessimistic? 

Vedanta philosophy is neither optimistic nor pessi- 
mistic. It enquires into the true nature of good and 
evil, describes their interdependent relation, and ulti- 
mately leads human minds to the realization of 
Divinity as the life and soul of all phenomenal objects. 

Is not the Creator of evil separate from the Creator 
of good? 

Vedanta teaches evolution and not special creation; 
consequently it has no need of the unscientific concep- 
tion of two extra-cosmic creators, the one of good and 
the other of evil. 

How do you explain good and evil by the theory of 
evolution? 



20 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

In the process of evolution that which appears bene- 
ficial to us under certain conditions is called good; 
and that which is injurious to us in any way is called 
evil. 

What does Vedanta say regarding the inheritance 
of original sin? 

Vedanta does not recognize any such thing as orig- 
inal sin, which one is bound or destined to inherit. 

What is the meaning and cause of sin? 

Sin means selfishness. It is the result of ignorance 
of one's true nature, or Divine Self. 

Does your philosophy teach Vicarious atonement? 

No. But it teaches how to attain at-one-ment, or 
oneness with the Supreme Spirit through the realiza- 
tion of the Divinity within. 

Can a sinner reach perfection? 

Yes. When a sinner realizes spiritual oneness with 
his true Self which is pure, sinless and divine, that 
very moment he becomes free from all sins and im- 
perfections; and he remains so for ever. 

Are we responsible for our deeds, good or evil ? 

Yes. We are responsible for every action, both 
mental and physical. Moreover we are bound to reap 
the results, the deed will surely return to the doer. 

How do you differentiate good from evil actions ? 

By the motives that prompt them. An evil action 
may result in benefit to others, but is not on that ac- 
count a good action, nor can it bless the doer of it. 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD 

LECTURE BY 

SWAMI ABHEDANANDA 

TUXEDO HALL 

NEW YORK, NOVEMBER J2, 1899 



The lecture by the Swami Abhedananda on "The Mother- 
hood of God" is serious, logical, awakening, and one can 
hardly help feeling that only use and wont prevent us from 
recognizing that the phrase, "The Fatherhood of God," is 
really assailable. * * * * * Says Swami Abhedananda, 
"We live and move and have our existence in that Divine 
Mother." At present we are, as a rule, not much beyond 
the old Israelitish notion of Jehovah ; and here we find this 
enlightened Indian's teaching specially rational and whole- 
some. The Hebrew religion gave us the picture of a Jeho- 
vah, stern, arbitrary, and exacting as an Eastern autocrat. 
Says the Swami, "The same Jehovah, when considered as the 
Father of the universe by Jesus and His followers, did not 
lose this extra-cosmic nature. Even to-day the majority of 
the Christians cannot go beyond this idea of an extra-cosmic 
God." And that is where we are to-day for the most part. 
What if the profound Eastern idea of the Motherhood of 
God, allied to our already fruitful idea of the immanent (in- 
stead of transcendent) God, should turn out to be the prac- 
tical emancipation of the Western mind, delivering it from 
the anthropomorphic images that cluster about this "extra- 
cosmic" God, and introducing it to a thought of God which 
will bring Him absolutely near? ***** We have 
long needed a little more of this "superstition" and senti- 
ment in "this happy English isle." Let us be hospitable to 
all who bring out from the treasury "things new and old," 
the "pearl of great price." Especially let us be hospitable 
to the interesting thinkers who increasingly remind us of 
the ancient proverb that wisdom comes from the East. — 
Extracts from the leading editorial of "Light," London, July 
8th, i8c?9. 



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